Dec 20, 2017 - The news that a hitherto unrecognised New Zealand dairy farmer Norman Daysh invented the mechanised milking machine and had the patents to prove it was officially revealed by the world leader in milking machines De Laval which took up these patents.

De Laval which is presumably aware of the problem that New Zealanders have in recognising achievements outside the sporting sphere platformed descendants of Norman Daysh who died at the relatively young age of 42 while demonstrating his invention at the Palmerston North Showgrounds.

De Laval is to institutionalise the invention of the mechanisation of milking by inaugurating a scholarship to commemorate their market launch in 1917 of the machine that incorporated the Daysh patents.

Again, De Laval’s sensitivity to the difficulties in New Zealand in the recognition of industrial heroes is demonstrated in its stated intention to aim the scholarship at the primary end of education rather than the usual tertiary end.

The first successful use of teat cups with a vacuum milker is found in the 1860 US patent of a lever operated suction device in the name of L.O. Colvin,

Then in 1878, Anna Baldwin is often cited as the developer in the United States of the first suction milking device.

The Norman Daysh development of the mechanised and cow-friendly solution now creates a triumvirate of New Zealand milking inventions now standard in the international industry.

The other two are:-

The rotary shed brought to market in the late 1960s by Merv Hicks in Taranaki. This is a round shed that has a rotating platform.

Then before the rotary, the herringbone shaped pit parlour invented by Ron Sharp which allowed the milker to stand with the cow’s teats above waist height and incorporating the angle parking conformation that was then being introduced into Hamilton.

Meanwhile Norman Daysh’s son Duff Daysh (pictured) carried on the family tradition of innovation, but this time in the financial realm.

Daysh Renouf was the signature stock broking partnership of New Zealand’s post war era and credited with taking the nation’s underwriting into the wider world.

De Laval, previously known as Alfa Laval contrary to widespread impression is not French. It has always been owned and controlled in Sweden where it is now part of Tetra Pak.

Meanwhile other New Zealanders who remain unknown in New Zealand, even by the professional societies of the industries they opened up, are Major Frank Holmes the pioneering prospector of Middle East oil and Leslie John Comrie who started during World War 2 in London, the first computer services bureau.

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